Expansion of the wireless communication arena is being driven by an increasing demand for wireless devices along with improvements in wireless communications platforms and systems. Users may exchange information through pagers, cellular telephones, other wireless communications and computer based products. Wireless communication provides users the benefit of exchanging personal and business information employing wireless networks such as a wireless local area network (WLAN). A WLAN provides flexibility and mobility for users by enabling access to a spectrum of communication and computer networks, including the Internet, without being restricted to a wired network.
Several standards have been established to provide uniformity and support growth in the development of wireless networks. One such standard that has been promulgated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is IEEE 802.11, which is incorporated herein by reference. IEEE 802.11 is an overarching standard that encompasses a family of specifications pertaining to packet-based wireless communication. Generally, IEEE 802.11 specifies an over-the-air interface between a wireless client and a base station or between two wireless clients.
Within the IEEE 802.11 family are several specifications, such as IEEE 802.11a/b/g, covering areas such as different transmission rates, encoding schemes and frequency bands for transmitting data wirelessly. Performance of the packet-based wireless network is dependent on reliable detection of the transmitted packets. Much work has been done in this area for a packet-based wireless receiver employing a single transmitted stream. However, when multiple concurrent transmitted streams are employed, the packet-based single receiver is typically not equipped to detect these transmitted streams reliably.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an improved way for a packet-based wireless receiver to reliably detect multiple, concurrent transmitted streams.